Sochi Winter Olympics torch relay to include ISS spacewalk

April 16, 2013 by Chris Bergin

In what will be a truly unique event, the Olympic torch for the 2014 Winter Games will ride up to the International Space Station on Soyuz TMA-11M in November. The simulated flame will then be taken outside of the orbital outpost during Russian EVA-36, before returning to Earth on Soyuz TMA-09M.

ISS and the 2014 Winter Olympics:

The 2014 Winter Olympics – the 22nd Winter Games – will be held between the 7th and 23rd February, 2014. Sochi was selected as the host city on 4 July, 2007 during the 119th IOC Session in Guatemala City, defeating bids from Salzburg, Austria; and Pyeongchang, South Korea.

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This will be the first Olympic Games to be held in the Russian Federation, following on from the 1980 Summer Olympics, which were held in Moscow during the era of the Soviet Union.

The torch relay will begin in Moscow on October 7, 2013 – before passing 83 Russian cities and arriving at Sochi on the day of the opening ceremony, February 7, 2014. However, there will be a twist during the November leg of the relay.

To achieve the required timeline, planners have moved forward the schedule for the expeditions, by changing the launch date of the Soyuz TMA-11M crew – consisting of Mikhail Vladislavovich Tyurin (Roscosmos), Rick Mastracchio (NASA) and Koichi Wakata (JAXA) – from November 25 to November 7.

This will allow for a four day direct hand-over, with Soyuz TMA-09M – and its crew of Karen Nyberg (NASA), Fyodor Yurchikhin (Roscosmos) and Luca Parmitano (ESA) – returning on November 11.

With the torch heading uphill to the Station on Soyuz TMA-11M, a Russian EVA will take place in-between the four day handover.

The spacewalk – known as RS EVA-36 – is a required task, which will include the installation of the high-resolution camera “UrtheCast” on universal workplace URM-D, located on Zvezda module.

However, it will also include a first-of-its-kind event, as the plan includes the simulated Olympic torch to be taken outside of the ISS, allowing for a leg of the relay to take place in the vacuum of space.

The torch relay EVA will be performed by the two Russian cosmonauts from the Expedition 37/8 crew, namely Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky.

With the torch brought back inside the ISS, it will then fly back to Earth on the departing Soyuz TMA-09M, which will be undocking from MRM-1 Rassvet port.

All that is known about the torch that will ride into space is that it is an “imitation flame”, for reasons that are obvious when considering both the safety requirements inside the vehicles involved, and the vacuum of space outside the ISS.

As part of the schedule realignment, the undocking of Europe’s ATV-4 cargo ship will now take place on November 4, clearing the Zvezda Service Module for the arrival of Soyuz TMA-11M.

Following the departure of Soyuz TMA-09M, November 18 will mark the re-location of Soyuz TMA-11M from the Zvezda SM to the MRM-1 Rassvet port, followed by the arrival of the Russian cargo ship Progress M-21M to the Zvezda SM on November 23.